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Proper diet and regular exercise are the two key factors for healthy living. If one takes care of these two factors, there is a least chance that he suffers from any serious disease. Here in this article, we will discuss the beneficial effects of exercise on various organs and systems of the body.

Heart and circulatory system – Regular exercise makes the heart muscles stronger and more efficient. The blood vessels dilate during exercise, and so more blood reaches the muscles. It has been found that during vigorous or rapid exercise, the blood circulation in certain muscles and organs with more oxygen and a larger number of red blood corpuscles.

The respiratory system – Breathing becomes not only more rapid, but also deeper, thus making increased quantities of oxygen available.

The skin – The pores of the skin open up during exercise. The result is a healthier skin, because of more efficient disposal of impurities and dirt.

The musculature – Regular exercise strengthens the muscles, promotes their development and increases their efficiency. Stronger muscles lend better support to the joints.
Temperature of the body – The temperature of the body rises during exercise. This promotes the burning up of the toxic substances in the body. And as the toxic substances get eliminated from the body, it is safe from any disease.

So, we see that all the systems of the body derive invaluable benefits from exercise. Each one of us should set aside a minimum period of 30 to 40 minutes every day in the morning for exercise.

Disclaimer: This article is not meant to provide health advice and is for general information only. Always seek the insights of a qualified health professional before embarking on any health program.

It had never crossed my mind to share on “why exercise” as I always assumed that we all believed and had no quibble over the fact that it was an essential part of everyone’s life regardless of whether one had the time or discipline to do it, until about two years ago I gradually retreat from a sedentary lifestyle and I established a workout regimen in the morning and started to find out more about the different types of workout such as aerobic training, resistance exercise and weight bearing activities. I realise that exercising may be something people talk a lot about, but sometimes, its benefits may not be so crystal clear to everyone.

1. Helps Strengthen Your Heart

Aerobic exercises benefit the circulation of your blood through your heart and blood vessels, that is, your cardiovascular system. They make our heart work harder, pump more blood, and reduce the risk of developing heart disease. With each beat of your heart, a surge of blood is pumped into your body’s intricate web of blood vessels. The pressure exerted on your artery walls as blood passes through helps keep the blood flowing smoothly (what you know as ‘blood pressure’). A build-up of plaques in your arteries, caused by cholesterol in your bloodstream can affect your blood flow and cause serious damage to your cardiovascular system.

Regular workout is beneficial to our heart as it helps eliminate the build-up of plaques in arteries by increasing the amount of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (the “good” cholesterol) and decreasing the amount of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (the “bad” cholesterol) in your blood, while keeping the blood pressure at the optimal level. As a result, your heart is able to do a better job in delivering oxygen to all parts of your body. Blood travels more efficiently, bringing much-needed oxygen from your lungs and nutrients to the rest of the body. That explains why people generally feel revitalized and more energetic after exercising.

Want to consider some aerobic activities? Try swimming, basketball, rope skipping, jogging (or brisk walking), in-line skating, soccer, or biking.

2. Maintains Strong Bones and Muscles

I am sure most of us have tried doing push-ups, weight lifting in some form, or repeatedly used your muscles to counter some kind of resistance. These are called resistance exercises which the experts believe could strengthen our muscles; preserve bone mass, increase bone density. Regular resistance training can help prevent the bone-weakening disease, osteoporosis.

Walking and jogging are also important activities that bear your body’s weight and help build strong muscles and bones. Other resistance workout include pull-ups, running, biking, and rowing.

3. Helps Manage Your Weight

This benefit is well-known to all who are weight conscious or trying to lose the extra pounds. Your body needs a certain amount of calories every day just to function. If you eat more calories than your body needs, it may be stored as excess fat. For instance, if you have an excess of 10kg fat, and each gram has some 9 calories, then you have 90000 calories for your body to use!

Exercising helps you achieve or maintain a healthy weight by stoking our metabolism, utilizing and burning the extra calories. And if you exercise, your body works harder and needs more fuel. Even after you stop exercising, your body continues to burn calories at a modestly increased rate for a few hours. The more intensely you workout, the more calories you burn. By burning more calories than you take in, you can reduce body fat, giving you a healthier body composition. Losing body fat can make you look and feel better and can reduce your risk of obesity.

4. Induces Quality Sleep at Night

Many people who have problems sleeping find doing moderate exercise at least three hours before bedtime help in relaxing and sleeping better at night. The recent Hibernation Diet Theory teaches that regular exercise could activate production of recovery hormones during sleep, increases our body’s metabolic rate and promotes fat-burning. It makes a powerful association between poor sleep and obesity, a disease that has been rising dramatically in developed countries and has reached epidemic levels in the United States. While most of us would associate poor weight control with aging, low metabolism rate, and poor eating habits, many other research studies have also reported and pointed to the relationship between insufficient sleep and weight gain.

So start today, get a good night’s sleep, aim for eight hours a night if you can, and add resistance workouts will speed up your weight loss and the body will worker harder at night.

5. Puts You in a Better Mood

We all know that it definitely feels good to have a strong, flexible body that can do all the activities you enjoy and be able to move your arms and legs freely without feeling tightness or pain. But you may not know that exercising can actually put you in a better mood.

Exercise combats depression by activating the neurotransmitters, which are basically chemicals used by our nerve cells to communicate with one another and often associated with avoiding depression. The balance of these neurotransmitters, namely serotonin and norepinephrine plays a role in how we respond to daily events. When experiencing stress, our level of serotonin, norepinephrine or both may be out of equilibrium. Workouts may help synchronize those brain chemicals.

Exercising also stimulates the production of endorphins, another type of neurotransmitters that produce feelings of well-being, provide for “natural” pain relief, and help you relax.

Sounds good? If you just had a tough day at work and need to let off some steam, go for a workout or a brisk 30-minute walk to calm yourself down.

Well, if you have not any form of physical training for a long while and find it a pain to do so, I suggest that you start doing it 2 times a week and slowly increasing to 3 and then 5 times or more a week. You can do 10 or 15 minutes bouts of workout each time to make up a 30 minutes session a day.

6. Inspires Your Lymphatic System to Work Better

Now, this is a relatively new knowledge for me and thus has become my latest edition to this page (which was previously known as “5 Great Reasons Why We Need to Exercise”). While the above reasons have given us enough incentive to workout, there is yet another reason which I never knew before, the extremely essential lymphatic system. It is a vital network of vessels and nodes responsible for regulating fluids, distributing proteins and filtering out poisons in the fluid between the cells. It is a guard and a defence system against infection, viruses, bacteria, fungi, and sicknesses. The three most important methods of lymphatic circulation are external massage, muscle expansion and contraction, and intense exercise. This means the more you move, the livelier it becomes. When the lymph is operating optimally, our health is maintained with our body’s natural detox system. But if the lymph is running sluggish and there is too much waste, a blockage in the lymphatic system happens, leading to symptoms like chronic fatigue, water retention, allergies, eczema, arthritis, and infections. For a more detailed account on this topic, read “Exercise Inspires Your Lymphatic System to Work Better”.

Have you ever felt tired and stressed out from work and by the time you get home you see your three children running towards you asking you to play basketball with them? You refused and promised them that you will after you take you rest.

Instead of disappointing your children, why not say, “yes” after all? You will be surprised by the amount of energy you will have after that 30-minute activity.

Did you know that by exercising at a moderate pace for only 30 minutes, you would feel a lot better, mentally? It has been proven that this improves the appetite and sharpens your style in problem solving. Not only that. You will also feel that it is easier to sleep at night if you do moderate exercises even for only 30 minutes every day.

What are the benefits of regular exercise? It promotes self-discipline and has a positive impact how you perceive life. Exercise helps in lifting your spirits and getting you out of any depression. For first timers, it can be done for 15 minutes for 2 to 3 days a week. You can increase the time you spend once your body gets tuned up for it.

DON’T you ever force your body! If you get hurt, then stop. You can take a break from exercising for a few days and then you can start again but you need to start from day 1.

Here are some moderate exercises you can do and enjoy:

1. Do the Walking. Make use of your surroundings. You can walk your dog, with your partner or child. Encourage your family to do the walking exercise daily and you will find yourself burning calories while enjoying the surroundings and getting enough sunlight that is also good for your body.

2. Discover the wonders of Yoga. Yoga is one effective exercise that energizes not only your body but also your soul. You may want to learn even the basic yoga positions that are not too complicated but proven effective. A five-minute yoga exercise can perk you up and recharge your body with the energy you lost for the whole day. You relax and at the same time you stretch!

3. Engage yourself into sports. Play basketball, football, baseball, tennis or badminton. Many doctors have recommended sports as an effective way to stay fit and healthy. Sports can also be done in moderation. Do not take it seriously. Shooting basketball with a friend is one moderate exercise that is also considered a sport.

4. Join exercise programs at work. If you still do not have exercises programs at work, then why not start it? You can talk to your boss about it and start with your colleagues. You do not only lose calories but it is also one good way to bond with them. This can be done 30 minutes, 3 times a week.

5. Exercise while doing household chores. Gardening, raking leaves, lawn mowing, doing the laundry, vacuuming and car washing are effective moderate exercises at home. Make use of these chores to sweat and burn calories. Instead of using machines and gadgets to perform these chores, why not do it with your hands and lose some fats?

Making exercises as part of your daily routines will surprise you of how much calories you will lose. Doing these moderate exercises of the same amount every day can burn 150 calories up to 1,000 calories a day!

Physically active people have cells that look younger on a molecular level than those of couch potatoes, according to new research that offers a fundamental new clue into how exercise may help stave off aging.
The study, involving more than 2,400 British twins, found for the first time that exercise appears to slow the shriveling of the protective tips on bundles of genes inside cells, perhaps keeping frailty at bay.

These data suggest that the act of exercising may actually protect the body against the aging process,” said Tim D. Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College in London who led the study, published yesterday in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Previous research has shown that being physically active reduces the risk of heart disease, cancer and other diseases, potentially extending longevity. In the hopes of helping explain how, Spector and his colleagues examined structures known as telomeres inside cells.
Telomeres cap the ends of chromosomes, the structures that carry genes. Every time a cell divides, the telomeres get shorter. When the telomeres get too short, the cell can no longer divide. Scientists believe that aging occurs as more and more cells reach the end of their telomeres and die — muscles weaken, skin wrinkles, eyesight and hearing fade, organs fail, and thinking clouds.

Spector and his colleagues analyzed the telomeres from white blood cells collected from 2,401 twins participating in a long-term health study, examining whether there was a relationship between the subjects’ telomere length and how much exercise they got in their spare time over a 10-year period.

“We’re using telomere length as a marker of our rate of biological aging,” Spector said.

The length of the twins’ telomeres was directly related to their activity levels, the researchers found. People who did a moderate amount of exercise — about 100 minutes a week of activity such as tennis, swimming or running — had telomeres that on average looked like those of someone about five or six years younger than those who did the least — about 16 minutes a week. Those who did the most — doing about three hours a week of moderate to vigorous activity– had telomeres that appeared to be about nine years younger than those who did the least.

“There was a gradient,” Spector said. “As the amount of exercise increased, the telomere length increased.”

This day and age it can be very difficult indeed to go to the gym. Life is very hectic and busy, which will create a serious challenge for remaining consistent with exercise each day. Exercise is however, just what we all need to reduce stress, and give the body the extra energy it needs to carry out normal living.

The best results of exercise are achieved through the use of refined techniques, functional exercises, cardio, the right nutrition, variety, awareness, consistency, and motivation over a period of time.

The refined techniques mean correct form to isolate muscles or to target areas of the body. Efficiency is need to ensure stimulation of the muscles. With weight lift training, which is also known as resistance training, you’ll need to eliminate any type of momentum.

It is also important to move the weight about using a full range of motion. Full range of motion causes the muscle to contract for the right amount of time and help to ensure the right length of the tendons. The goal here is to strengthen the joints of your body by stimulating the muscles.

Cadence is also helpful, as it is a term that refers to the rate in which the resistance or the weight moves. The best results with cadence are gained by slow movements which will cause the muscle to contract for a longer period of time. You can mix in a series of fast and slow cadence, which is very beneficial with sports type training.

Using the correct angles will achieve muscle isolation in target areas and help to decrease the risk of injuries, which is great for those using heavy weights.

Functional type exercise is a popular technique that will stimulate the core and torso of your body while you work on another muscle group at the same time. As an example, when you perform a dumbell press while lying on an exercise ball.

Your abdominal muscles and the core muscles will contract to hold your body into this position, while your chest and tricep muscles will push the dumbells up. This type of exercise and challenge will cause maximum stimulation to your body and keep the workout interesting and refreshing.

Cardio is another exercise that is great for the heart and lungs. The total number of calories you burn is very important along with maintaining the right heart rate. The formula for your heart rate is 220 minus your age times 60 for the lower number, then 220 minus you age and times 80 for the upper number.

This is also known as fat burning zone. Cardio will also de-toxify the body and help to strengthen the immune system along with other benefits. The muscles will contract and pass the lymph along, which will allow the immune system to clear away dead cells and bring new ones in.

Anytime you exercise, warming up is very important, as it will prepare your body for the more demanding workout of cardio. You should always allow 15 - 30 minutes prior to weight lifting and 10 - 15 minutes prior to cardio exercises. You should also stretch as well, as this will help get the blood flowing through your musles and get them limber as well.

An ideal schedule for working out is to warm up then follow with cardio. You can lift weights on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday then cardio only on Tuesday and Thursday.

Even though you may think your schedule is simply too busy to maintain a schedule for working out, you’ll find that adding exercise will actually add more time, as you’ll have a lot more energy in your normal everyday life. You can think of exercise as the batteries that will help to give your life power.

There are two main types of exercise that you can do - aerobic and anaerobic. The first one, aerobic, means with oxygen. Aerobic type exercise has an important distinction, it burns fat as the main fuel.

Anaerobic on the other hand, burns sugar as the main source of fuel. Despite common myths, exercise doesn’t have to be drastic in any way to provide massive benefits. Even if you choose light exercise, you will still burn fat.

Light exercise will clear out lactic acid, which is a waste of the body, and stimulate your cells to regenerate. To be sure that you are burning fat rather than sugar, it’s very important to make sure that you are doing several things as you exercise.

The most important thing you can do as you exercise is breathe deep. You should always breathe in deep into your stomach through your nose, hold it for a few seconds and then exhale hard through your mouth.

Second, you should make sure that you exercise at a comfortable level. You should exercise at a level of 7 out of 10, and still be able to carry on a normal conversation while you exercise. You should do this for 45 minutes or so each day, then you’ll begin to notice just how much your energy will explode.

Even if you don’t think you have the time to exercise, rest assured that there is always time. If you have to, use the time that you would normally spend sleeping. With exercising, you’ll actually need less sleep than before.

You can also use the time of your lunch break to exercise as well. The increase in productivity will have you more on the ball, and you can save your time through the dramatic increase in your overall productivity.

Cellularise, or rebounding, is one of the best forms of aerobic exercise there is. If you have access to a rebounder, you shouldn’t hesitate to use it. Use any break you have at work to engage in some type of movement and deep breathing.

Any type of exercise you do will strongly benefit your heart. It will make it a stronger and larger organ. Deep breathing will help your lungs become stronger and larger as well. There is research now that links exercise to helping benefit and almost prevent each and every type of disease or ailment.

Movement of the joints will promote proper blood flow and create energy, as sitting down all day will rob your body of much needed energy. If you sit down all day, it’s very important that you promote blood flow, circulation, energy, brain flow, and the strength of your heart. With just a little bit of your time devoted to exercise, you’ll find yourself healthier than you have ever been in the past.

It is universally recognised - by medical practitioners and the public alike - that regular exercise is beneficial to health. Psychologically and physiologically, there is no doubt that indulging in activities that flex the muscles and raise the heart rate brings enormous benefits and represents an important part of a healthy lifestyle.

Despite the undoubted health advantages however, it is possible to over-exercise and a propensity to over-indulge in exercise carries several social, physical and psychological risks.

Doctors recommend that everyone takes part in some form of exercise for three periods of at least 30 minutes every week. Many people exercise much more frequently or intensively than that - perhaps working towards personal sporting or aerobic goals or as part of a regular social sporting pursuit, often gaining substantial health benefits and personal satisfaction.

But for some people, exercise becomes a compulsion - a part of their life that, rather than offering health and social benefits, brings only problems which, unless the compulsive pattern is broken early, have the capacity to become self-reinforcing. Understandably, parents or friends of someone whose indulgence in exercise appears excessive may be unsure and consequentially reluctant to intervene but there are a number of key signals to look out for that may indicate an exercise regime has become potentially harmful.

The development of a problematic situation is often indicated by an insistence upon exercise regardless of all other aspects of life or the consequences for others - for example, missing social activities or other significant personal or professional commitments. Often, an individual’s motivation is rooted in emotional issues, their goal to lose weight and raise self-esteem rather than to be mindful of normal health or social considerations. Their exercise schedule is intense and rigid to the extent that missing even a single session can make them anxious and unsettled and even attempt to double the amount of exercise they do at the next available opportunity to make up for the perceived loss. The compulsive nature of their exercise may drive them to continue with their planned schedule in spite of injury or illness, risking a worsening of their condition, and they will typically exercise alone, uninterested in the social benefits that many derive from sport and competition.

Medical practitioners agree that the excessive physical burden of over-exercise can result in a number of health side-effects with potentially serious long-term consequences. Placing the body under excessive strain and denying tissue adequate recovery time can be a contributory factor in the development of degenerative arthritis, osteoporosis, stress fractures and cardio-vascular complications. Muscular deterioration, fatigue and dehydration have also been identified as potential consequences of over-exercise. No less debilitating are self-perpetuating social and psychological difficulties such as the neglect of personal relationships, leading to greater loneliness and isolation, anxiety and depression and a resultant reinforcement of negative self-perceptions and guilt.

Your bones are found in many joints. Knee joint. Hip. And fingers in the joints and the joints in your toes.

When the bones meet, there is also cartilage, a rubbery, protective layer that ensures your joints bend without pain and without. But even cartilage can not do this enormous task alone. A thin membrane called synovium “provides fluid that lubricates the moving parts together. When the cartilage wears on the synovium becomes inflamed, the result is mostly “osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis.”

In osteoarthritis, the cartilage may be weakened to the point that the bone does not rub on bone. These type of arthritis develops gradually over the life of a simple result of wear and tear on the joints over the years. Very few people escape some degree of osteoarthritis, although the severity varies widely.

As it is, in fact, if you have more than 50 years, you’re likely to have at least one joint affected by osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis affects men and women and so far the most common form of arthritis, with nearly 16 million Americans on the list.

In rheumatoid arthritis, damage to the synovium is the problem. Doctors and investigators are not absolutely sure what causes, but most think that rheumatoid arthritis is a disease in which the immune system actually attacks certain tissues, including those linking the joints and synovium.

Rheumatoid arthritis begins with swollen, red, stiffness, and pain, but progress May scar tissue forms in common, or in exceptional cases, while the bones in fact merge. Nearly 75% of 2 million people with rheumatoid arthritis in the United States are women. Disease May hit adolescence.

The exercise of your options for prevention

Invest a little time developing a good weight low-impact exercise and stretching plan can add to big results when it comes to staving off arthritis pain. Strong muscles help protect joints from wear, and the continued flow of soft.

That is why the quest for fitness is at hand, even if you’re 50 or older. However, the majority of Americans over 50 are still where they were still jog and return to the prospect of another. Most of them claim that it is only for people who have a lifetime sport, or something to say exercise is for young people and engage in the practice more harm than good.

There are still some who insist on giving them themselves in exercise routines because they not only have the time or have less energy than ever. These are all excuses of the blade. Therefore, it is time to start getting rid of pain. Start the year.

Consequently, preventing arthritis is not exactly science, but doctors have found several ways to reduce your risk. Here’s how:

1st Do not weight around

One of the most important measure anyone can take to prevent osteoarthritis of the knee is to lose weight if they are overweight. Extra weight puts extra stress on your knees. If you are 10 kg, for example, save 60 kg per square inch of pressure on your knees every time you step. Additional pressure to be slowly but surely erode and cartilage in his knee with arthritis.

Research has clearly supported the theory that weight loss weighs on the side of prevention. The study, overweight women who have lost 11 or more pounds over 10 years reduced their risk of developing knee osteoarthritis by 50%.

2nd Stretch your muscles

Any type of stretching is good until you bounce, which can lead to muscle pull. This is in line with some of the professor of clinical medicine at New York.

Try to keep a slow and steady stretch of 15 to 20 seconds, then relax and repeat. This is the best stretches of turn before any exercise, especially jogging and walking. But it is a good idea to stretch every day. Ask your doctor to teach you stretches to focus on the potential places of arthritis problems, such as knee and lower back.

The 3rd step is always the best exercises

Take a long walk at least three times a week or participate in a step aerobics or low-impact exercise routine maximum results. There is no evidence that he is running bad for the joints, but remember, on May aggravate the injury, if you already have one. And do not forget to check with your doctor before starting a new exercise program.

Ultimately, it was all healthy habits, exercise is important. This is because people are designed to be active. So it is very important for people to exercise to stay healthy and keep the joints without depreciation.

Just keep in mind that without the body ‘, even if there are no symptoms of illness or problems such as arthritis, is not at full potential. Thus, the implementation to begin immediately!

The number of overweight Americans is at an all time high. People are placing fitness and healthy eating on the back burner while keeping up with their hectic lifestyles. While some people simply don’t have time for physical activity, others just refuse to commit to a fitness regimen. With enticing television shows, hectic work schedules, and keeping up with the needs of the family, many people pay very little attention to their physique and their sedentary lifestyle. Perhaps knowledge is the key to success. Maybe if more people were aware of the numerous health benefits that can be attained through exercise than more people would make fitness a part of their daily lifestyle.

Regular exercise offers numerous benefits. The first and most common is weight loss. A lot of people who wish to maintain their weight or lose a few pounds make exercise and a healthy diet a part of their daily lives. Burning extra calories, such as 500 calories each day, could result in successful weight loss. Exercise also helps you tone your body and feel better about yourself. When your body is fit, your posture improves and your confidence rises.

Aside from weight loss benefits, exercise can help you feel better, give you energy, improve your sleep, help you feel more alert, reduces stress, relieve tension, lower the risk of depression, lower the risk of heart disease, lower the risk of osteoporosis, lower the risk of diabetes and ease the joint pain associated with arthritis. These are just a few of the medical benefits that you can gain from routine physical activity. Overall, everyone who is physically active would never go back to their sedentary lifestyle. Regular exercise has given them energy and along with a positive outlook on life.

When it comes down to physical activity getting started is the worst part. People are often reluctant because they are afraid of failure and disappointment. A lot of people expect to lose weight quickly and to keep it off; however, that is not usually the case. Weight loss is a slow and steady process that is why it is important to set realistic goals. For instance, you shouldn’t expect to lose 5 pounds in 5 days- that is nearly impossible. Set goals that you can attain. Knowing that one pound of fat equals 3,500 calories make yourself a realistic table of just how much you want to lose. For instance, if you want to lose 1 pound each week, you need to cut out 500 calories from your daily diet.

Once you have figured out how much you want to lose, you next question may be how much physical activity you really need. Well, these numbers can vary greatly depending upon your current weight. It is recommended that people who are overweight exercise longer than those who are naturally thin. For the average Joe, 30 minutes of physical activity everyday should do the trick. It will help you maintain a healthy weight, lower the risk of heart disease, lower the risk of osteoporosis and diabetes. But if you are exercising 30 minutes each day and still gaining pounds, you might need to increase your fitness regimen to 60 minutes. Simply start out with 30 minutes and see if that gives you the results that you wanted.

90 minutes of physical activity is usually recommended for those individuals who were significantly overweight and lost a substantial amount of weight. Ninety minutes is often essential to maintain that weight loss and stop the pounds from creeping back on. So as you can see, the amount of exercise each person needs varies depending upon several important factors. That is why it is often wise to consult with a fitness professional prior to beginning a workout regimen.